‘Conversations ongoing’ – Hearn open to last minute Croke Park intervention
Eddie Hearn has suggested ‘conversations’ surrounding Katie Taylor‘s homecoming and a possible fight in Croke Park are happening again.
The Matchroom boss says as things stand the undisputed lightweight world champion will return home to fight in Ireland for the first time as a pro on May 20 and will top a 3Arena bill.
However, he told media in New York that after news of a Croke Park no go caused ‘national uproar’, that ‘a lot of people’ got in touch in a bid to rectify the situation.
His focus is on Amanda Serran, Taylor’s possible opponent, and her undisputed featherweight fight tonight, but he gave some stadium hope declaring ‘we’ll see what happens over the next few days.
GAA HQ was always the desired destination for the return home of Ireland’s greatest athlete and has been on the agenda since the spring of 2022.
Indeed, Team Taylor and Croke Park had held positive talks about hosting what would be a historic event. After a September fight night on Jones Road didn’t materialize, May 20 was provisionally booked, only for a cost row to force Matchroom to explore 3Arena options.
Hearn then claimed the cost of going to the GAA stadium was three times that of Wembley, prompting Croke Park commercial director Peter McKenna tostate there was no price difference between the stadium’s rental, rather the issue surrounds a €400k security bill.
The Essex fighter promoter has since labeled that clever wording, suggesting the rentals may be similar but Croke Park has added costs that Wembley doesn’t, and not just in terms of security.
“I’ll make one thing clear there was some very clever wording in saying rental is only a little bit more expensive than Wembley,” he said. “It’s not the rental it’s the costs require, the costs they require to stage the fight there. I’m not having a go out at them I’m just saying for what the fighters want to make and what I want to pay them it’s not possible,” he adds before hinting a potential solution.
“We will carry on conversations, there have been a lot of people reaching out today. At this stage, May 20 is Katie Taylor’s next fight date. We’ve run out of time so we made our move to go the 3Arena, but there has been national uproar and we’ll see what happens over the next few days.”
